What is Sugar Addiction

Food addiction is not your fault.

It is not because you are lazy or lack willpower to resist sugary, processed foods. There are specific biological mechanisms that drive addictive behaviour. These behaviours arise from primitive neurochemical rewards centers in the brain that override normal willpower, and, in the case of food addictions, overwhelm the ordinary biological signals that control hunger.

While some of us may be more genetically predisposed to the addictive properties of food, if you examine your own behaviour, and your relationship to sugar in particular, you will likely find that your behaviour around sugar matches up perfectly with why you canâ€™t control your eating habits.

If food does in fact have the potential to be legitimately addictive, that doesnâ€™t mean that everyone is addicted to it. Everybody overeats once in a while and abuses food once in a while, but it doesnâ€™t mean you are a food addict. The important thing to remember is that some brains are more vulnerable to food and other addictions.

You or a loved one may be carbohydrate addicted if meeting the following criteria:

Eat starchy or sweet, fatty foods until uncomfortably full

Eat large amounts of sweet or stodgy foods even when not physically hungry

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Feel self-loathing, disgust or depressed about your eating habits

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Turn to carbohydrate-rich foods when feeling down

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Find you need more and more sweet foods to keep feeling better

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Plan to eat small portions but wind up binge eating

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Find it difficult to cut back on starchy or sweet fatty foods

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Feel that your eating habits are impacting negatively on your social, work or physical life